"Sounds like you're cutting a lot of ties all at once," Nick said eventually. "Is that wise?"
"I don't have any personal ties in the Northwest. I didn't even move to Portland or open the galleries until a couple of months after Aunt Claudia died."
"You've only been in the area a little more than a year?"
"That's right. Not long enough to put down roots. There's nothing holding me here." It was time to accept that truth, she thought. Time to get on with her life.
She looked out over the expanse of Eclipse Bay. The sun was low in the sky. It streaked the clouds gathering out on the horizon with ominous shades of orange and gold.
Nick drove without speaking for a while, concentrating on the road, although traffic was almost nonexistent on the outskirts of town.
"Why did you come to Eclipse Bay?" he asked finally. "Why go to all the trouble of starting up a business in a small town in addition to one in Portland? That was a major undertaking."
"It's not easy to explain. Aunt Claudia talked a lot about what happened here all those years ago. The memories bothered her a great deal toward the end. She felt guilty about her part in the feud. I promised her that I would come back to see if there was anything I could do to put things right."
"No offense, but just what the hell did you plan to do to mend a three-generation rift?" Nick asked dryly.
She winced. His obvious lack of faith in her feud-mending skills hurt for some obscure reason. The worst part was that he was right. She had been a fool to think she could do anything constructive.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I just decided to give it a whirl."
"I gotta tell you, that sounds damn flaky."
"I suppose it does. The thing is, after Aunt Claudia died there wasn't anything holding me in San Francisco."
"That's where you were living?"
"Yes."
"What about your job?" He flexed his hand on the wheel. "A significant other?"
"I had a position in a small gallery, but it wasn't anything special. And there was no particular significant other."
"Hard to believe."
"I was seeing someone before Claudia got so sick. But it wasn't that serious, and we drifted apart when I started spending more and more time with my aunt. He found someone else and I sort of went into hibernation. By the time I resurfaced after the funeral, I had no social life left to speak of."
"Family?"
"Not in the San Francisco area. My folks are separated. Dad lives in Houston. Mom's in Philadelphia. They've both got other families. Other lives. We're not what you'd call close."
"So you just up and moved to Oregon."
"Yes." She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose that sounds very flighty to a Harte."
"Hell, it sounds flighty for anyone, even a Madison."
That irritated her. Given his track record with women, he had a lot of nerve calling her flaky and flighty.
"I like to think of myself as a free spirit," she said. She rather liked the sound of that now that she thought about it. Free spirit definitely sounded better than flighty or flaky. More mysterious and exotic, maybe. She arched her brows. "Do you have a problem with that?"
"Don't know," he said. "I've never actually met a free spirit before."
He was still pondering all the possible definitions of free spirit ten minutes later when he turned into the narrow, unpaved road.
"You know, I think you were right." Octavia leaned forward a little, peering through the window at the trees that loomed on either side of the rutted path. "I might have spent hours searching for this turnoff. Mr. Thurgarton certainly didn't believe in making his place easy to find, did he?"
He shrugged. "Thurgarton was one strange man. Just ask anyone."
She smiled fleetingly. "Sometimes I think that being a bit odd or eccentric is a requirement for renting or purchasing real estate in Eclipse Bay."
"I will admit that the people we're about to meet certainly exemplify the finest in that local tradition."
He eased the BMW deeper into the trees and brought it to a halt at the edge of a small clearing.
Arizona Snow's pickup truck was parked under a nearby tree. Virgil Nash's vintage sports car stood next to it.
A gray, weather-beaten cabin occupied the center of the open space. It was on the verge of crumbling into the ground. The front porch sagged and the windows were caked with grime. There was a worn-out quality to the old house, as if it were content to follow its owner into the grave.
"It doesn't look like Thurgarton took good care of his property," Octavia said.
The touch of feminine disapproval in her voice almost made him smile. He thought about her pristine gallery with its sparkling windows and carefully hung paintings. The interior of her little fairy cottage out on the bluffs probably looked just as neat and tidy.
"Thurgarton was not real big on home improvement projects," he said.
He switched off the engine and climbed out from behind the wheel. Octavia did not wait for him to show off his first-date manners. She got out of the front seat all on her own.
Free spirit.
Virgil Nash opened the front door of the cabin as Nick and Octavia started toward the porch steps.
"He certainly doesn't fit the stereotypical image of a p**n shop proprietor, does he?" Octavia murmured in a very low voice.
Nick grinned. "Virgil's definitely one of a kind, and you've got to admit that his business offers a unique service to the community. Sort of like a library."
"Well, that is one way of looking at it, I suppose. There is something scholarly about him, isn't there? Maybe it's the frayed sweater vest."
"Could be."
It was true, Nick thought. With his gaunt frame, silver goatee, and preference for slightly frayed sweaters and vests, Virgil would have been at home in an academic environment. There was an old-fashioned, almost courtly air about him. No one knew where he had come from or what he had done before he had arrived in Eclipse Bay. His past was as shrouded in mystery as Arizona Snow's.
For as long as anyone could remember, Nash had operated Virgil's Adult Books & Video Arcade. The establishment was discreetly located a couple of hundred yards beyond the city limits and, therefore, just out of reach of ambitious civic reformers and high-minded members of the town council.
Virgil believed in the old saying that location was everything in real estate.
"Nick, this is a surprise." Virgil walked across the porch. "Good to see you again. Heard you were in town for the summer."
